The Oklahoma conspiracy - Part 4

On June 11, one man will be executed for carrying out America's worst peacetime atrocity. Timothy McVeigh claims to have acted alone, but new evidence reveals he was part of an undergound network of white supremacists. ANDREW GUMBEL of the Independent reports.

Nobody knows exactly what McVeigh and the Aryan Republican Army got up to in Arizona in February and March 1995, but something else was going on that may have been directly related to them.

Two survivalists called Steve Colbern and Dennis Malzac began experimenting with detonators and small explosives in the desert outside Kingman, the town where Michael Fortier lived and McVeigh had taken up temporary residence.

McVeigh had heard about Colbern from Roger Moore, the businessman robbed in Arkansas three months previously, and had written him a recruitment letter at the end of November 1994 that was never received: a water company employee found it strapped to the leg of a transmission tower on the Arizona-California border. "I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters," McVeigh had written. "And if you are a fed, think twice."

On 21 February, a large ammonium nitrate bomb exploded outside the home of one Rocky McPeak, just outside Kingman, apparently the work of Colbern, Malzac and a local loan shark called Clark Vollmer. McPeak later testified to an Oklahoma grand jury investigation that when he went to Vollmer's home the next day to confront him about it, he found McVeigh and another unidentified man there.

Was the McPeak incident a trial run for Oklahoma City, with McVeigh taking lessons in bomb-building?

During this time, McVeigh was described by several people as agitated to the point of paranoia, leading to speculation that he was strung out on crystal meth. By his own admission, he had tried the drug before, and crystal meth does not lend itself easily to occasional use. It is noted for the short-term sense of empowerment it gives its users, and its tendency to instill paranoid delusions. On several occasions, a stream of people was seen flowing in and out of McVeigh's motel room, and in one establishment his guests made so much noise that he was thrown out.

This was not the behaviour of a lone-wolf terrorist mastermind.

As 19 April approached, the number of coincidences and bizarre sightings multiplied. An unusual flag previously seen in the ARA's propaganda video, featuring a coiled snake against a white background, appeared outside Michael Fortier's Kingman home.

In February, Guthrie bought a 1970s-era Chevy pickup, the same make and era as the vehicle seen so often in Oklahoma City on the morning of the bombing. On 1 April, a pickup matching its description was seen outside Terry Nichols' house in Herington, Kansas.

Also on 1 April, Stedeford, McCarthy and Thomas went to Elohim City, ostensibly to wait for the funeral of Richard Snell following his execution in Arkansas. But they, along with Dennis Mahon, left again a few days before the funeral had taken place. Thomas went to Pennsylvania and Mahon to Illinois, possibly to establish alibis for the bombing. The whereabouts of the other two men on 19 April are unknown.

Then, as first reported in the Denver Post, there were the anomalous sightings of yellow moving trucks around Kansas and Oklahoma, well before the Ryder was rented from Elliott's on 17 April. As early as 8 April, one was seen parked outside the Lady Godiva strip club in Tulsa, at the same time as three men, later identified as McVeigh, Strassmeir and Brescia, were inside.

A showgirl, captured on a dressing-room security video, told her fellow strippers that one of the three had boasted to her: "On 19 April 1995, you'll remember me for the rest of your life."

Another yellow truck, along with a Chevy pickup, turned up on 10 April at Geary Lake in Kansas, not far from Nichols's house. The truck was seen again repeatedly over the next week, both at the lake, where McVeigh claimed he mixed the bomb with Nichols, and at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, where McVeigh checked in on the 14th.

Were the witnesses imagining things, or was there a deliberate strategy to try to confuse everyone? Mark Hamm argues vigorously for the latter, pointing to the ARA's track record of switch cars, disguises and very careful staking of their territory before every crime.

If he is right, then who exactly was in Oklahoma City on 19 April? That is a tough question, and no serious researcher claims to have anything close to a definitive answer. Michael Brescia, with his strong resemblance to John Doe 2, is a leading candidate. So too is Pete Langan, whose likeness was captured with remarkable accuracy in an artist's sketch of a man seen by a loading bay worker in downtown Oklahoma City who signalled in vain to the Ryder truck to pull into his slot as it approached.

As for the others, one can only guess. Hamm describes the left leg recovered without a body as "The Phantom," a member of the bombing team whose identity has never even been hinted at. "I'm not saying I have all the answers. I don't have any smoking gun. As a criminologist I look for patterns and develop theories. I don't necessarily have hard evidence that can stand up in court."

That probably also summarises the way government investigators feel about their flawed efforts. For all the bruising disappointments and public distortions of the past six years, the FBI can at least console itself that most, if not all, of the suspected conspirators are out of harm's way ­ for the moment. Guthrie is dead, and Langan is in prison for life.

But Brescia got only six years, and Thomas and McCarthy ­who will be under government supervision as protected witnesses when they are released were given eight and five respectively. Stedeford got 20 years, but could well be out sooner.

And that's not to mention those suspects who have escaped the judicial heat altogether: Dennis Mahon, who still lives in Tulsa, and Andreas Strassmeir, who returned to Germany nine months after the bombing.

It remains to be seen how the public reacts once these findings receive a wide airing. Hamm's book ­now heavily rewritten ­will be published in the autumn. Will Americans accept his conclusions and, if so, will they find the justice system at fault?

The man best placed to fill in the gaps and provide some concrete answers is, of course, McVeigh himself.

He has given little away in his correspondence and in media interviews, beyond what he told the two Buffalo journalists for their book.

On June 11, he is due to be strapped to a stretcher at the US penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and become the first federal prisoner to be put to death in almost 40 years.

However, developments at the end of last week have cast doubt on the execution date.

On Saturday, McVeigh's execution was postponed by John Ashcroft, President Bush's ultra-conservative attorney general, for a month because the FBI failed to give McVeigh's lawyers thousands of pages of documents.

Nobody doubts McVeigh's guilt, which he now freely confesses. Everyone agrees that he is utterly unrepentant.

But one of his attorneys said McViegh, who earlier decided not to appeal or seek a presidential pardon, would review his options after the postponment.

Ashcroft would have us believe that his death, which will be broadcast on closed-circuit television to the victims and their relatives in Oklahoma City, will enable the country to achieve "closure."

There is still lingering doubt, though, that the networks of guerrilla activism that gave rise to the bombing may be very far from closed?

Aren't there a few things the world's most notorious mass murderer should tell us before he is allowed to depart this life and descend into silence for ever?

- INDEPENDENT